Venus Going Down, or Mars
by nooziewoozie
Summary: "Tell me, Aleran," Kitai says as she marches into Tavi's office with Derius hanging off one hip, "why I just had to eject a naked woman from your bed." -Moments, conversations, and raised eyebrows ranging from FoC to FLF and beyond.
1. Ehren

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Ehren, Aquitaine, and responsibility.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T because Ehren is indirectly committing murder here.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Oh, God, I've got so many of these written out, and one or two of them could become full-blown one-shots all on their own. (Oh God oh God I need to stop this.) I've got a few written up. Will post as they come. Have fun! And review! Don't forget to do that.

* * *

><p>Ehen is very good at playacting. He's been acting one part or another for years—anxious schoolboy, bored slave, disgruntled soldier, loyal, competent spymaster—so it is almost shamefully easy to coax the new princeps of Alera into an open confrontation with his wife: all it takes is a diffident word, a careless shrug, a brush of an idea so light that if Aquitaine manages to figure it out at all, it will be too late.<p>

Ehren steps lightly out of the command tent and ghosts into the night. He fingers a knife he keeps hidden in his right sleeve, and thinks of treason, of duty, and of the rather dubious and rather terrifying future.

Then he thinks of Tavi grinning at him in the middle of the night while orchestrating a mad scheme, and Max slapping him in the back hard enough to knock him over, and stops thinking. He grips his knife harder and hopes instead.


	2. Isana and Bernard

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Bernard, Isana, baby Tavi.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T for language and mentions of violence.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Missing scene in which Bernard learns some things and makes some decisions and Tavi is the cutest baby in the world.

* * *

><p>Isana, when she comes to the steadholt he has been granted, is a drawn, thin, pale creature and clutching a baby to her chest. Bernard engulfs his sister in a tight embrace and doesn't ask any questions. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth as she shakes like a leaf and babbles things he cannot understand—Alia, the battle, the baby, the slave, Alia, Alia, Alia.<p>

She holds him and he holds her and they grieve.

* * *

><p>Bernard eyes the rigid tension in his sister's back as she leans over the basin and washes the baby. Her movements are infinitely careful and infinitely gentle, and Bernard can already tell, with a clenching of his heart, that they are not the motions of a bereaved aunt. Isana is a bereaved mother.<p>

"He's not Alia's, is he?" he asks, but it is a pointless question. They both know the answer.

"Isana," he tries again. She hasn't spoken in more than monosyllables since they had been reunited, and he worries that she'll never speak again. He must do _something_, he realizes with an unfamiliar sense of desperation, reach her _somehow _because he'd move all the stone in Calderon Valley if it could get her to eat more, or speak more, or begin to live life again but he cannot solve this problem this way. Had she been a spooked horse, he would have given her days of quiet and carrots and apples; but Isana is slowly transforming into a corpse before his eyes. So he asks questions that need to be asked and answered, questions that need to be said and acknowledged. "Please. Tell me about him. What is his name?"

For a long while, Isana says nothing. 'Sana had never been a restful woman, but Bernard can sense the storm whirling away in her, can see the tension threading through her fingers.

Isana bows her head, and whispers brokenly, "Tavi. His name is Tavi."

He lets out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Does Tavi have a father?"

She inhales sharply, and for a time, he thinks she is again going to retreat into a far, foggy corner of her mind again. But she moves, slowly, as though in a trance—she draws a necklace over her head, and uncurls a hand towards him. In it, on her palm, is nestled a ring: a scarlet and blue stone, held aloft by eagles.

His heartbeat thunders in his ears. From far away, he hears himself say, "Does—he know? Does Gaius know?"

Isana whirls to face him, her eyes dark with fury and impotence and grief beyond words. "_No_," she says, her voice shrill.

Bernard doesn't know whether to laugh or cry: Isana is many things, but she is never shrill.

"No," she says again. "He _cannot_ know. _No one_ can know." She shoves hair out of her face with a soapy hand, shaking. "Gaius couldn't protect his _own_ _son_ in the face of a known threat. He _abandoned_ his son to danger and I will not—I _cannot_—trust Tavi to his care. They'll kill him, Bernard. They'll _kill_ him." She shakes her head sharply and turns back to the baby—to Tavi—to bloody _Gaius Octavian, _princeps of Alera. "I'll—we'll go, if you like," she continues, her voice very small and very lost in the ringing silence. "It's too much for you to…for you to risk so much. We'll go."

He isn't listening. Great furies. Great bloody _crowbegotten_ furies. Bernard sits down and puts his head in his hands. The realm. The issue of succession in the house of Gaius. Unrest. Threat of civil war.

And his sister, her face nothing but bones, her arms as thin as a bird's, spending her days and nights gazing at the beloved face of her child and drawing breath for it alone. And the little boy, his _nephew_, with his loud, lusty cry and fat fists and who is already sitting and spitting and chewing on Bernard's fingers with one pointed tooth. The boy with life and mischief in his gummy smile and the pink bloom of the well-loved in his round cheeks. _They'll kill him_.

Bernard's decision is made for all that it was never his to begin with.

"I'm with you, 'Sana," he rumbles. "I'm with you."


	3. Sextus

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Sextus, Septimus, and Tavi  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K. Sextus is alone. He loves Tavi. He just has a hard time admitting it.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> I admit I teared up when Alera said that Sextus would often look in on Tavi while he slept. Oh, Sextus. How difficult and bittersweet it must have been for him to discover, after so long, that he had family.

* * *

><p>Some days, all Sextus does is catalogue differences. There are a million and one matters clamoring for his attention, but when the light is right and Tavi quirks his head at precisely the right angle and smiles - crooked, slightly, with the left side of his mouth canting higher than the right—Sextus thinks, <em>This is my grandson. My grandson<em>. How curious that the words still jolt him so.

Sometimes, when his wine and his tonics have made the world blur along the edges, Sextus ghosts into Tavi's chamber and peers at the boy's face, ensures himself that he is still breathing and at peace and still. Sextus makes sure to drink in the sight. Sextus could touch him now, if he wished—move his hands along the boy's high cheekbones and stubborn chin and the sweep of his brow—but there is a curious heaviness in his chest and behind his eyes so he does not. There is little mistaking the resemblance now. His son's smile, his son's stance, his son's eyes, and his son's voice are all codified and preserved in Tavi.

And yet, the boy is cleverer than Septimus, is more serious and rapaciously studious and perhaps more stubborn. He has a natural affinity for intirguecraft and a wicked way with a rapier and an even more slippery way with words and all of the shades of meaning found in between them.

And fragile. So heartbreakingly fragile. No furycraft to protect him. No walls of fire nor streams of wind nor strength borne of stone will leap to Tavi's defense.

It is only in moments like these, in the dark and with the boy's—this remarkable boy, this brilliant boy—soft, slow breath in the air, does Sextus allow himself to grieve, to hope, and perhaps to love.


	4. Max and Crassus

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Max and Crassus  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K. This might be the cleanest thing I've ever written.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> My love for Max and Crassus is irrational.

* * *

><p>Max tosses a sword at Crassus with careless grace. "You ever spar with Father?" he asks, cracking his neck side to side.<p>

Crassus looks at him dubiously. "Some."

Max grins and says, "All right. If we're to be on the front line there, we need to know what we can do together." He unsheathes his own gladius and assumes a neutral guard position.

Crassus looks from his sword to Max's. "Here? Now?"

"Yep," Max says, cheerful, and rushes at Crassus. He manages to get his gladius unsheathed in time and parries, but only barely. Max narrows his eyes; all good cheer and cockiness drain out of his features, and only coldly analytical determination is left. "Footwork," he barks, and slashes his gladius low at Crassus belly.

Crassus blocks, parries, attacks, and the fight goes on. Slowly, Crassus gains his footing. The drill is familiar, one that is taught to all boys in Antillus, but Max makes the rough chops seamless and before Crassus knows it, he has spun into another drill, and another, and another. Crassus is struck by how eerily similar this is to sparring with Father. Max could _be_ Father: he moves like Father, and his sword is as fast and as decisive as Father's is. But Crassus knows how to fight this—Max might be a juggernaut, who crushes all in his sight, but Crassus is faster, lighter, quicksilver.

"Good," Max says, panting slightly. "Good. Faster this time," and they go at it again.

And Crassus feels a blooming in his chest, a stupid, misguided sort of pleasure that he should be beyond feeling because he and Max have been estranged for years. He can't help it, though. Max has always been his big brother.


	5. Max and Crassus II

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Max and Crassus  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K. No, _this_ is the cleanest thing I've ever written.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> I don't buy that Max and Crassus' water furies took the _exact same form_ because both boys read the same book.

* * *

><p>Crassus remembers in fleeting moments of stillness between wakefulness and sleep.<p>

Max is young and sitting on the ledge of a fountain in a hidden courtyard bathed in moonlight. Rearing out of the water is a great lion, old and battle-scarred and magnificent. It nuzzles Max's chin and purrs so loudly Crassus can feel the vibration in the soles of his feet as he hides in the shadow cast by a large stone wall.

He stares in awe as his brother says, "Well, Androclus, that's it for us, isn't it?" He dismisses the fury, and the lion simply melts as though it was made of ice. Max uncurls to his full height, shoulders a heavy pack and vaults neatly over the low wall encircling the courtyard. He disappears into the darkness on what Crassus assumes is a jaunt into the city proper.

Crassus' heart beats madly. Father scoffs at manifested furies, so Max must have done that all on his own. _I've got to get him to teach me how to do that, _Crassus thinks excitedly as he climbs into bed. Max might not want to teach him, and he would be foul-tempered and groggy, but he would come around. _Max always caves eventually_, Crassus reassures himself as he drifts off to sleep, planning how to hunt Max down after breakfast and ambush him for lessons in watercraft. _I want a lion, just like that one. _

Crassus never gets a chance to ask, though, because it's soon apparent that Max is gone forever. Crassus holds out hope until the last possible second—that any day now, Max would come bounding in, laughing, flirting with a maid, making a bet with a pageboy, trading stories with Father's stewards—but later, when news comes that Max has joined the legions in Placida, Crassus' heart breaks. He cries a little, hidden in the old place in his closet, because his big brother is not coming back.


	6. Max and Raucus

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Max, Raucus, and various OC moppets  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K. It's so saccharine, it'll give you diabetes.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> So I was brushing my teeth the other day when I had a vision of Raucus as the ultimate doting grandfather. He'd be the sort to spoil his grandkids rotten, sign them up for every competitive sport ever, and be at every single game and get _way_ too into it. Yeah.

* * *

><p>"What are you doing here, old man?" High Lord Cereus Maximus sighs as he steps into his children's nursery. "I thought we booted you out two days ago."<p>

"Shhhh," High Lord Antillus Raucus says. He is sitting on an old rocking chair in a corner of the airy room. Nestled in his one remaining arm is a baby, only a year old. "Can't you see she's sleeping, boy?"

Max rolls his eyes heavenward. "Not for long." He plucks Nephele out of Raucus' grasp and props her against his shoulder. She squirms a bit, sighs, burps, and settles into sleep again just in time for Max's boys tumble into the room, caked in mud and grime and flushed with the satisfaction of a day's fun.

"Grandfather!" Macius and Vereus cry in tandem and throw themselves on Raucus and climb up his body like the little monkeys they are.

"Did you bring Albus?" Macius asks, perching on Raucus' shoulders. "He's a lot more fun than Nephele. All she does is cry and poop."

"Hey," Max protests. The boys blithely ignore him.

"Did you get us anything?" Vereus demands with no trace of shame, standing on Raucus' thigh. "An' you promised you'd get me'n Macius stallions. Did you get the stallions?"

"How tall are you now?" Raucus asks, raising an eyebrow and not quite hiding his delight.

Vereus pouts. "We drink milk every night."

Macius says, "We want the horses _now_. Stop being greedy."

"I don't think so," Raucus says, and stands up. The boys hang off him tenaciously. "You'll get the horses when you're as tall as your old man. In the meantime…"

He points them to the mantle, where two brand new practice swords are sitting. The boys leap off him and race to the fireplace.

Max makes a face at his father and hands Nephele over to him. Then, with the expert timing that only comes with daily care of two very rambunctious rapscallions, he plucks the two boys into the air midstride and bears them off towards the bathroom.

"What did you do with the nursemaid?" Max asks over the boys' protests.

"Dismissed her," Raucus says easily, striding over to stand in the door and observing the mêlée with a satisfied smirk on his face.

"_Must_ you," Max growls, wrestling one squirming imp out of his clothes with one hand and holding down another one with his other hand, "insist upon bringing chaos with you whenever you come down here?"

"I want to spend quality time with my grandchildren." Raucus shrugs. "A nursemaid would get in the way."

"You have another son who has kids of his own," Max says, dumping both boys in the large tub. He pours a good bit of soap in the water, and before the imps can do more than blink water out of their eyes and demand to be tossed in again "from higher this time!", he sends Androclus in to scrub them clean. "You can bother him, too. Have you forgotten that particular fact or are you just going senile?"

"My other son never gives me so much grief, you know."

Max shoots his father a dubious look.

"And Zara said she'd cut off my other arm if I kept waking Albus up." Far from looking cowed, Raucus seems positively prideful. "What a girl Crassus married, eh?"

Max fishes his sons out of the tub, dries them with a quick blast of wind, forces a clean white nightshirt over each of their heads, and nudges them toward their new toys. They take off as though propelled by wind furies fit for Gaius Octavian himself.

"That's the eighth pair you've gotten them," Max says under the din, smiling despite himself.

"Of course," Raucus replies. "They broke the last seven."

"That's because you were teaching them counters _I_ didn't learn until my second hitch in the legions!"

"The Princeps can do them. I don't see why my boys can't."

"That's because Derius is half-Marat and about five years older than Macius." He shoots his father a wry look. "And he's got Araris as a teacher."

Raucus grunts. "Exactly, exactly. We can't have them lagging behind. I'd like to see Rari smirk at me when Macius and Vereus kick _his_ brat into the next city."

Nephele wakes with a wail and Max takes her again, nestling her against the crook of his neck and bouncing her up and down. He watches as his father wades into the fray and begins to mock-spar with the boys, calling encouragement and praise. Raucus has been happier these past few years after having given away the responsibility of Antillus to Crassus and the birth of his grandchildren. Max is only beginning to understand the many regrets his father carries around him like a mantle; neglecting his grandchildren will not be one of them.

Max smiles and shakes his head. He decides to leave Raucus to it and heads off in search of his wife. It seems his father is staying for supper.


	7. Masha

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Masha, who is now a cursor.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T for potential violence.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Girl's obviously is going to have Parental Issues to work out at some point, though I think Amara and Bernard would be awesome enough to circumvent most of the angst.

* * *

><p>For as long as she lives, Masha will never understand how that idiot Bortus had ever managed to climb high enough to become one of the personal undersecretaries to the Cursor Legate, because, quite frankly, she thought Maestro Ehren was smarter than that. Tonight, Bortus' handsome, angular face is stretched wide with a nasty grin. She supposes it's too much to hope that he'd spare her his oily attentions, or that he'd miss her in the smoky tavern. It is. Bortus makes a beeline for her as soon as his eyes alight on her.<p>

"I hadn't expected to see you back so soon, Countess," he murmurs, slipping onto a stool adjacent to her.

Masha clenches her fist then forces it open. She sips her ale and says nothing, though if stony silence had been effective against Bortus, he'd have left her alone years ago. _I'd rather this habit of brawling out your disagreements doesn't continue, _Tavi had said. _While I might agree that a well-placed punch is indeed worth a thousand words, a cursor's got to be more…circumspect. _

"Of course, not all of us are so lucky as to be in the First Lord's most intimate circle, are we?"

She narrows her eyes at him. She tries to recall Maestro Ehren's stern face, his calm eyes. _Don't speak with your fists, Masha. It is highly ineffective. _

"It is a family tradition, no?" His smile and eyes widen as he raises a glass in mock salute. "Masha ex Cursori, daughter of Lady Caderonus Amara, arguably the most famous cursor of our times, and Lord Calderonus Bernard, bona fide hero to the realm."

This she cannot ignore. "I passed my exams in good faith," she says tightly. "Not that a slive like you would know anything about that."

"Did you?" He asks silkily. "As far as I recall, the documents were bundled up tight and never seen again."

"Need to know basis only," she grits out. "Obviously, no one judged that you were in need."

"Ah," he says. "That's where you're wrong. As secretary—"

"Undersecretary."

"—to the Cursor Legate, I have unparalleled access to information that normally would be kept from, say, floating to the wrong ears."

"Meaning you were snooping around where you weren't supposed to be." She snorts. "I always knew you were an idiot, but you've reached unparalleled heights in stupidity now, I'm sure."

"I'd hold my tongue if I were you, Countess," Bortus hisses, "because I've found discrepancies. About who your mother was. Who your father might have been." He leans forward until his nose nearly touches hers. "Who your _grandfather_ might have been. The fact that you were the sole surviving cursor to emerge after the failed mission in the Waste."

There's a roaring in her ears. The conjectures are nothing she hasn't thought out for herself. She knows Bernard and Amara are not her real parents; she knows all her brothers and sisters bear no blood relation to her; she knows who the dark-haired woman from her earliest, foggiest memories, the one with the hard hands and the soft eyes, was, and who it was that she worked for, and what he'd had her do.

But to hear this slive—this fool—this crowbegotten, cheating, sniveling cur purring them to her snaps something deep inside. They are private wounds, personal mysteries, and not a stain she will allow this idiot to paint on her brow for the world to see. Her family - her _parents_ - deserve better than that.

"You'll do well," Masha says very quietly as light gleams on the knife she holds to the idiot's throat, "to remember that I was _Calderonus_ Masha before I was Masha ex Cursori and my father raised me to never suffer fools." She smiles grimly. "And my mother taught me knifeplay so I wouldn't ever have to."

The man says nothing. She isn't surprised; she is holding the knife at such an angle that, even with the barest of movements, Bortus' throat would be pared wide open.

She narrows her eyes at him dangerously. "Suggest anything else, _fool_, and I'll gut you," she whispers, and leaves him gasping.

_And won't they be proud_, Masha thinks bitterly as she stomps from one of her favorite haunts in New Appia, _I didn't even punch him_.


	8. Max and Tavi

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Tavi and Max.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K. This is kind of cute.  
><strong>Notes: <strong>In this story, Max has wed Veradis, hence his name being High Lord Cereus Maximus.

* * *

><p>"You don't have to do this, you know," Gaius Octavian says. "No one will think less of you."<p>

"My kid will," Max answers belligerently. "When she asks me why daddy can't fly, what'll I tell her? That I fell once and never tried again? What'll that say to her? That failure is acceptable?" His face is implacable. "I think _not_."

Tavi rolls his eyes. "It could be a boy. And you're being unreasonable." Tavi is sure that Max will be an excellent father, given his natural mother hen tendencies and his gregarious, cheerful abundance of affection, but he doesn't voice that thought. He really doesn't want to be thrown fifty feet in the air again, which was something Max had taken to doing once Tavi had revealed that he could fly. Out of sight and earshot of the men, of course, which describes their current situation outside New Appia perfectly.

"Maybe," Max concedes. Tavi raises his eyebrows, but Max continues. "_You_ learned how to fly after a bloody winter on the crowbegotten ocean. Teach me."

Tavi rubs his head, and tries not to think of giant ice caverns and how the floor had seemed to rush at him with bruising speed. "It's not that simple."

"The crows it isn't," Max growls. "Do you remember the method?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then teach me, Calderon."

"Max," Tavi says, "why does this _matter_ so much to you?"

"Because—"

"And don't give me that tripe about your unborn child, either. I know it isn't about that." Tavi frowns at Max. "Balls. Talk to me."

The old phrase, spoken on a rain-soaked wall during a terrible night of fear, gives Max pause. Tavi watches his old friend gather himself. "You remember how I told you my stepmother tried to kill me during flying lessons?"

Tavi nods.

"Well," Max hedges. "I'm going to have a family now, Calderon. A real family, like yours. You know, people who _like_ each other." Max grimaces, half embarrassed, half determined. "My stepmother isn't going to have any part of it. My whole life, that's been the dividing point. That fall. That's when I began to run." Max meets Tavi's eyes, deadly serious. "I'm done running, Tavi."

Tavi stares at Max for a long moment. Then he claps Max on his shoulder and says, "Be ready for lots of pain, then. Bring your watercrafting muscle."

"That's more like it," Max says, and they ride on.

* * *

><p>Five years after Third Calderon and the conclusion of the Vord War, High Lord Cereus Maximus learns how to fly.<p> 


	9. Crassus

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Crassus. Mentions of Max, and a little of Tavi.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K, I think.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Crassus, you are fascinating. Stand still, will you, while I figure you out? This is Crassus right after joining the Legion, in the midst of adjusting.

* * *

><p>Rufus Scipio is a man he could grow to hate. Crassus is not given to mad passions, or leaps of faith, or swift, decisive action—that, he thinks resentfully, is much more his lord father or his brother's forte—but he's been in the legion for all of forty-eight hours, and it's plain as day that Max and Scipio—and he is sure that that isn't the man's <em>real<em> name—are far more than just casual acquaintances who rode in together.

No, they're friends, and in the truest sense. Crassus is especially skilled at recognizing friendship when he sees it, because he's never really had friends besides Max, and though he hasn't _seen_ Max in the better part of ten years—he's heard stories, stories told in the kitchens and around hearth fires, about Antillar Maximus and his famous exploits and his skill with blade and fury, and he's listened hungrily, lurking in corners and hiding behind bookshelves and praying that mother doesn't catch him again—it's bloody unfair that Max and Scipio joke and punch each other's shoulders and grin at each other so easily.

Crassus may not be given to mad passions, or leaps of faith, or swift, decisive action, but he _is_ given, he realizes, to seething jealousy: Crassus knows he's a lonely little prince on his lonely little hill, and it's bloody _stupid_ to want to smash Scipio's stupidly vacant grin in just because his big brother is best friends with the man, but Crassus can't help it.

* * *

><p>Legion life would agree with him if his various mental problems would <em>let<em> it. Crassus is friendly with his fellow Knights and he tries, in his own awkward way, to forge the beginnings of lasting friendships with them. He even sees some small measure of success: there are men who occasionally dine with him and some who train with him as though they enjoy it and who hold him is some measure of respect, though he's still figuring out how much of that is due to who his father is and how much is due to his skill of fury or blade. Unlike Max, who can make a friend for every breath he takes and do it just as easily, Crassus doesn't know how to fit into a scheme of things bigger than he is.

There's no time for that now, though, because his mother is very close to bringing the wrath of a thousand thunderstorms down onto one very stupid thief's head and Crassus is damned if he's going to sit in a closet while his mother maims the idiot. Handling her is difficult, but the last thing Crassus needs is more guilt on his shoulders—not after failing Adrian and Bardis so spectacularly, he thinks, and his heart sinks a little; they may not have been his friends, but they had been his brothers in arms and, bloody crows, he led them to death and pain, he should have done something, flew faster, freed them more swiftly, _something_—so he casts one sour glance around his tent and sets off in search of one Rufus Scipio.

He _does_ find Scipio a little later and rapidly comes to the realization that he's gotten much more than he'd bargained for because the crowbegotten ass is _damned_ fast. There's no fury-born strength behind Scipio's fists, but his blows are swift and precise and crippling. He knows that Scipio doesn't like him, had felt terrible anger brewing in him at that very first meeting, but—

His heart is numb. He might as well get used to shame. It's going to be a constant companion now. He can already see his father's face, his eyes angry and disappointed, and searching Crassus' face for features that belong to another son. "You'll get what you want now. You'll report me to the captain, won't you. Have me cast from the legion. Sent home in shame." Crows take it, his face may be on fire, but he won't betray any emotion, not to this man.

There's something speculative in the older man's face. "You don't get honorably discharged for falling down a flight of stairs," Scipio says quietly.

"What?" Crassus wonders if he hit his head harder than he thought.

"Sir Knight, just what the crows do you think those drums are for? Lulling fish to sleep?" Scipio's tone is suddenly hard and brooks no nonsense. "We're mobilizing, and I'm not going to do anything that robs the Legion of a capable Knight and our Tribune Medica. As far as I'm concerned, you fell down some stairs and that's the end of it. Come on."

He extends a hand, and Crassus can see that though Scipio isn't winded at all, his knuckles are split and bloody. He blinks, and sees glimmers of why Max can be such good friends with a man like that, so he takes Scipio's hand and climbs to his feet.

* * *

><p>Legion life <em>does<em> agree with him once he lets it. He likes it far more than he likes learning how to run Antillus and how to defend the Shieldwall from the Icemen. Those are exercises that he thought difficult and distasteful but necessary; flying with his fellow Knights—commanding his fellow Knights—is far more joyful than he could have imagined. There is a marked sense of wholeness and belonging once Crassus decides that, crows take it, he loves his captain, whatever the man's name is, and he loves his men and he especially loves that he and Max are comfortable enough with one another to banter and occasionally share a drink.

There must be something of his father and brother in him after all, he thinks with a fierce grin as he swerves through the clouds and dodges an errant balest bolt, if he finds this sort of thing _fun_.


	10. Masha II

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Masha, who is now a cursor.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T for violence.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Masha on a mission. (Why wasn't a Knight Flora called in to do this? Because this is so much cooler.)

* * *

><p>Masha breathes in and out. In and out, in and out. The slow, nearly silent rhythm fills her ears and she lets her thoughts, such as they are, pool into the cool metal of the knives in each of her hands. Her fingers are dry and the leather hilts fit neatly into her palms. They are well-balanced weapons: practical and sharp and easy to conceal in a sleeve or boot. Good.<p>

In and out.

There are no trees here. The land hereabouts is not the lush, damp, green hills of Masha's home, but the scorched, sun-baked hills of the southeast of the Realm. The town is filthy and filled to the brim with smugglers, petty thieves, and human misery; the air is choked with it and she fancies that the ancient, craggy stone walls have imbibed it. That would make sense: the entire place reeks with generations of ambitions thwarted and dreams gone long sour. She wishes in a far distant corner of her mind for dappled shadow of trees and the pleasant feel of dew on her cheeks. She grips her knives harder.

In and out.

Her eyes narrow, but not against the sun or against he sweat dripping down her forehead. A shadow separates itself from a narrow alley—big, brawny and covered in a cloak, and unusual during the hottest hours of the day, when even criminals would retreat indoors until the cool evening. Another shadow, barely a flicker, behind it, and the motion, merely a rotation of a wrist and a flash of two fingers. _Mark_.

In and out.

She resettles her grip and aims.

In and—

Her motion is smooth and practiced. A flick of each wrist and the knives are flying away from her. They bury themselves to the hilt, one knife for each of the man's knees. His cry rings from the stones as he buckles.

Out.


	11. Araris

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Araris/Isana, Tavi  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Written because Araris is man who listens more than he talks despite being arguably one of the most deadly persons on the face of Carna, and because he spent fifteen years in silence and thus would have learned to listen very well.

* * *

><p>At the steadholt, Araris measures time in absolutes. He's made three spades; that is a day. The crop has been cut; that is a season. Tavi learns words and says them, fast and improper and all out of shape, like he has too many thoughts and like those thoughts are too fast and like he doesn't yet have the words and patience to give them shape; that is a year, maybe two, maybe three.<p>

The act is wearying only when he allows it, and that he will not do. He plays the fool. He drools, and stumbles, and tries not to let on how much he knows in his eyes. He helps Isana as much as he can, but mostly he watches and listens. News is scarce in their little rocky valley, but merchants come often enough, and bring it with them: scandal in the capital, legions marching, and High Lords and First Lords endlessly doing more of the same. Bloodshed in shadows and figures lurking in the night are all things far from them, far from Isana, and far from Tavi. Still, he keeps watch by the fires, for who would notice the fool? Perhaps, he thinks, deep in the night, he should have become a bloody cursor, even if it is far, far too late for regrets.

No, it is not that. He will always and forever have regrets. But he has a duty, even now: a boy, who is too clever and too sly and too full and bright, a boy who lets honesty and lies melt on his tongue like sweets before he speaks, and that boy's mother.

* * *

><p>In later years, he will remember those days even if he does not like to. He will shape metal in the smithy even then, and tell his wife when she teases him that, <em>yes<em>, he knows he is a count of the Realm now, but it is just to keep his hand in and that it's handy skill to have, that's all.

She listens to the ebb and flow of the emotions of those around her like song, but to him, the purest of all sound is that of metal, cooling in water after he has shaped and honed and strengthened it. The song is sharp and clear, perhaps akin to sight of raindrops flashing in sunlight, or damp, cool earth under one's hands, or the hiss of a sword slicing through wind, fast and keen and orderly. In those long years at her brother's forge, it had kept him sane. To abandon it now would seems unspeakably callous. Metal furies are quiet ones and they need him to help them sing.

He tells his wife a great many things, and many of them she already knows, but he will not tell her these.


	12. Veradis and Dorotea

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Veradis, Dorotea.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T because Veradis is an angry mommy bear.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> I thought long and hard about this piece. Written because I felt someone needed to call Dorotea out on her abuse of Max and her attempts on his life. Sure, she's been massively incapacitated at the end and Max seemed to have put it all behind him, but I can't think that those who love him would be that forgiving especially if her collar could come off.

* * *

><p>High Lady Cereus Veradis stares at Antillus Dorotea with dry, flat eyes. The former high lady is a shadow of herself, dressed in a plain, dark dress with her hair tightly bound and her hands busy folding a small mountain of bandages into neat rolls. Most incongruently, a slim metal band encircles her neck. It is almost hidden by the high collar of her dress. Veradis lets her eyes linger on it for a second.<p>

Dorotea rises and curtsies. "Your grace," she says, her voice quiet, subdued. "To what do I owe this honor?" Once, when she had been High Lady Antillus, she would have sneered the words and infused them with cloying sarcasm. This woman, however, seems beyond that.

Veradis enters the small room but does not cross the floor. "Please, have a seat, your grace."

"I'm no lady any longer," Dorotea says, but seats herself and resumes her activity.

Veradis takes a deep breath and reminds herself to be gentle as she can. "Our First Lord has again worked a miracle," she says without preamble. Such a thing is fast becoming rather ridiculously typical of Octavian of late—typical of Tavi. Joining Max in marriage would apparently make her the next best thing to an in-law of Octavian's and he'd instructed her to call him by his pet name. "He has found out how to remove slave collars even if the originator of the collar is unavailable."

Dorotea bows her head. "I believe so."

"The process has been deemed safe. I've examined the results myself. Am I to understand that you are willing to have your collar removed?"

Dorotea reaches up and fingers the band. "High Lord Antillus and my son wish for me to remove it."

Veradis shakes her head. "I asked if _you_ wanted it removed."

"I…" Dorotea says, "I don't know."

Veradis tightens her mouth. "I don't care what you do with it, either way. Remove it, if you like. Keep it, if you like." She stalks into the room and takes the former High Lady's wrist in her hand so the ring of utter truth would color her voice. "But hear me, Antillus Dorotea. If you remove the collar and subsequently decide to hurt my Max—if you decide to even _look_ at him with ill intent—I will personally rip your spine from your body."

Dorotea stares up at her with wide eyes. Her lips tremble just once before she tightens them into a thin line. Veradis supposes she ought to be moved to pity by such a sight—of a woman of such power brought so low—but she cannot find any in her. Max had been a boy—a _child_, a wounded, hurting, abandoned child, and this creature, who should have cared for him, had instead ripped his mother from him and scarred him in both body and soul. How many times had Max gazed up at his stepmother like this, so frightened and alone? How many times had she disdained to show pity and instead reached for a whip?

"You preyed on him when he was young, when he had no protection," Veradis snarls. "You monster. You _whipped_ him until he bled. Then you followed him and tried, again and again and again, _to kill him_—once under my own roof, in my own home, in my father's house." Veradis' voice begins to shake, and her hand tightens on Dorotea's wrist sharply. She pauses for a moment to gather herself and loosen her hold. _Gentle_, she reminds herself. _Don't hurt her_. "And Max, because he is kind and good, has forgiven you as much as he is able," she continues. "But _I_ am not so kind. _I_ am not so good. I will not harm you as you are because Max loves his brother and Crassus loves you. But if you harm him, if you harm any of our children, if I ever catch a glimpse of your hand in any misfortune to befall them, I will destroy you. I will destroy all who defend you." Her eyes bore into Dorotea's. "Make no mistake. When I am through with you, nothing will be left for the crows."

Veradis lets go of Dorotea's wrist and stares with narrow eyes down at the trembling woman. "Keep your distance from me and mine, your grace," she says, her voice low and hard with anger, "and all will be well."

She sweeps from the room without looking back.


	13. Kitai and Tavi

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters: **Tavi, Kitai, baby Desiderius.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T...for politically motivated nakedness, I guess. It's not even "on-screen", as it were.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Post FLF. Spothisto asked if we could see Kitai navigating the courtly Aleran life. I hope you like this, good sir, even if it's not exactly what you asked for. (I can't help myself; I've been reading a shitton of romance novels lately. I'm a terrible English major. Need more pretentiousness, stat!) Kitai, of course, takes no bullshit and no prisoners. It's what I love about her.

* * *

><p>"Tell me, Aleran," Kitai says as she marches into Tavi's office with Derius hanging off one hip, "why I just had to eject a naked woman from your bed."<p>

Tavi rises from his seat, beaming. "Kitai! I didn't think you'd be back until next week."

"Clearly." She hitches Derius higher in her arms and raises an imperious eyebrow. "The woman, Aleran. And while you are explaining that to me, tell my why this one" —she bounces their son— "seems to think our bed is his."

Derius, the little traitor that he is, very plainly does not care that his father is in a rather large amount of trouble, smiles cherubically and then stuffs a fat fist into his mouth. Tavi briefly wonders where that fist has been and decides that he doesn't want to know.

"I can explain," Tavi says.

"Do," Kitai replies.

He sighs, opening his arms for her. She gives him a dubious, narrow-eyed look but comes into them anyway. He breathes deeply: sandalwood, riding leather, and wind. And Derius—talcum powder and milk and apples. Something very deep inside him rights itself. "I'm sorry you had to do that yourself. I was going to send Marcus in to check for her in a moment."

She fits her head into the juncture of his neck and shoulder and closes an arm about his waist, relaxing by degrees. "What has been happening, _chala_? I was only gone a month and your realm has gone even more mad."

"Many things. I'll fill you in in a moment." He kisses the hollow behind her ear. "Tell me, how did the succession go?"

She pulls him over to the large window-seat in the corner of the room and arranges them to her liking. He lets her. Ever since the birth of Derius, the bond between them had grown acutely strong; this past month without her had ached like an open wound.

"I missed you," she says once they've settled.

"And I, you," he says. He tightens his arms around his little family: one around Kitai's waist and the other about Derius' bottom. Nothing could feel more right than this. "Derius and I had to resort to cuddling every night because you weren't here."

"You spoil him," Kitai accuses with a smile in her voice, but there is melancholy stirring in her.

"_Chala_?" he asks.

She shakes her head and settles against his chest. "It was very strange to visit Maratea. I had once hoped that I would succeed my mother-sister as headman of the Horse when her time here came to an end. But…"

She burrows into his chest and kisses their son.

"It was a clean succession," she says finally. "There was no bloodshed. Hashat had left clear indications of whom she wanted as successor. Enna is wise and skilled. She will do the Horse proud."

"I'm sorry things didn't turn out like you planned."

She tightens her lips and shakes her mood off. "There is no need for feeling sorry. I have you. I have our whelp. I am happy." She looks up at him; her eyes bore into his as though daring him to disagree with her.

He kisses her instead. It is a long, slow affirming one, and Derius is the one to interrupt it. He puckers his own lips up at his mother. She smiles exasperatedly and gives him a kiss as well.

"You spoil him," she says again, cupping Derius' cheek with her hand.

"Because you're such a disciplinarian," Tavi scoffs.

"_Someone_ must be. Have you seen how your mother behaves with him? He can do no wrong in her eyes."

"Have _you_ seen how Doroga behaves with him? He won't take Derius off his shoulders!"

"Exactly—and I have allowed you to distract me. Motherhood has made me soft. Why was there a _woman_ in your bed, Aleran?"

Tavi sighs. "I am to appoint the new High Lord of Aquitaine in a week."

"Ah," Kitai says. "To which house does the woman belong?"

"Marius," Tavi says, pleased that Kitai had deduced so much of the situation so quickly. "Her father has been trying to get her insinuated as my mistress for days. He seems to be under the impression that if he prostitutes his daughter to me, I'll be more amenable to his petition."

"Your nobles are idiots," Kitai sniffs. "He should know that such an action would accomplish no more than setting you more than ever against him."

"Well, there you go."

"I am surprised at how you allowed her actions to continue to such an extent. You should have sent her packing long before now."

"Well…there were—are—certain considerations in play."

"Such as?"

"I needed Marius to think he's been making headway into my good favor to keep the good lords Egnatius and Arrius on edge. Being uneasy makes stupid men stupider. I'm counting on that." Tavi shakes his head bemusedly. "Poor girl. I don't think she wants to be in my bed any more than I want her there."

"You are wrong," Kitai says.

"Oh?"

"You underestimate yourself, my Aleran."

"Kitai, you can't think—"

"I am not sharing you," she says severely. "The days when that was a possibility are long past."

"They are?" Tavi asks, and allows a leering grin to stretch his face, which summarily earns him an elbow in the gut. He supposes he got off lucky; she could hit with enough casual strength to crack his ribs if she is well and truly peeved.

"You misunderstand," she says with cool aplomb, "as usual. You are a dangerous man, Aleran. You are clever and you are powerful. You are handsome. There are many women who would want to bed you."

He kisses the juncture of her neck and shoulder. "Is that so? How interesting, then, that I have no desire to reciprocate."

She turns in his arms, eyes glowing in the waning light. "You have a very clever mouth, Aleran. I have decided not to gut you like a fish after all."

He grins. "I am merely telling the truth." He kisses Kitai again. They've shared all sorts of kisses in the past, but this one is a hungry one, banked with fire and need. They'll need to put Derius to bed soon if this continues but Kitai pulls back and rests her head against his shoulder.

"Tell me," Tavi asks after a while, "what did you do to Lady Velia?"

"I will tell you what I did not do. I did _not_ tell her that if she is so unfortunate as to ever be seen by my eyes again, I will cut off her tongue and her ears and feed her to the herdbane."

Tavi sits up. "_That_ isn't any Marat custom I've heard of."

"Of course not," Kitai says. "That is only what I wished to do."

"Would you have done it? Cut off her ears and everything, I mean."

"Yes," Kitai says, "because you are mine, Aleran. This house is mine. This family is mine. That bed is a place for you and for me and not for any interloper who does not have the good sense the One gave a rock."

Everything in Tavi thrills to this woman, this courageous, shining, brilliant woman. "I love you, too, you know."

"Hmmph," she sniffs, but smiles.

"So what _did_ you tell her?"

"To leave or that I would challenge her to the _juris macto_."

"You…you did, didn't you?" This new move will complicate a number of delicate measures in place in the ever-shifting, subtle political game, but Tavi cannot bring himself to care. He is delighted.

"Of course I did, Aleran. I protect what is mine." She unfolds herself and gathers Derius, who has since fallen asleep, close to her breast. "Come," she says. "Let us put him in his bed. We will bathe, then eat, and then go to our bed."

He stands and takes Derius from her. The toddler is a warm bundle against Tavi's arm; contentedness and pleasure steam out of him. Tavi sighs and entwines his fingers with Kitai's and pulls her close. They stand together for a long moment and gaze upon their son, who has silver hair and grass-green eyes and already mischief in his grins.

"Come," Kitai says again. "It has been too long."

Tavi pulls up their hands and places a kiss on the back of hers. "Yes."

And he follows her out.


	14. Max and Crassus III

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Max, Crassus, various OC babies  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K because babies.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Max and Veradis have babies. Crassus is befuddled and makes mental notes to _never, ever_ be caught flat-footed if his brother and sister-in-law need a baby-sitter.

* * *

><p><em>Max never did have the good sense to do only one ridiculous thing when he could do two. <em>"Twins," Crassus says hollowly. He sounds like an idiot. The babies blink back at him with identical pairs of judgmental gray eyes as if to say, _Our uncle is an idiot. We don't know how much hope we can have of this world if our immediate family is filled with idiots._

Max claps him on the back but doesn't seem to be listening to anything beyond the sound of his own happiness. "Beautiful, aren't they?"

They're not beautiful, as a matter of fact. They're quite small and have over-large heads and pink old-man faces and wrinkly little hands with absurdly sharp little nails. "Have you decided what to name them?" Crassus asks. "I don't want to keep calling them Baby Number One and Baby Number Two."

"Vereus," Max says. He rubs Baby Number Two's belly with his right hand as he says so. "And Macius." Baby Number One captures Max's finger in what already seems like an iron grip.

It's not surprising, Crassus notes, that any baby Max had a hand in producing would be a rosy, robust specimen of the breed. "You're not going honor our side of the family in this?" he asks.

Max's grin takes on a sardonic edge. "I'll honor you when you're dead, little brother."

Crassus tries to smile back, because they might be broken and missing a few limbs and collared to wills beyond their own and some members of it will probably never be on speaking terms, but their family is still alive. Had he been a betting man, he wouldn't ever have taken those odds. "Fair enough," Crassus says. "Fair enough." And then he tries his hand at holding a nephew.

Of course, Vereus begins bawling in Crassus face and quiets immediately when Max takes him back, and then Macius throws up on him, so Crassus decides as he's sponging vomit off his shoulder that while he's happy for Max and Veradis, he wants no babies of his own just yet. _Succession crises came and go_, he thinks. Parenthood was indeed forever.


	15. Beritte, Old Bitte, and Heddy

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Beritte, Old Bitte, and Heddy. Heddy/Frederick? Because that's a thing that happened?  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> My Codex Alera fic: not particularly interesting to anyone but me and featuring minor characters you probably don't remember. Utterly, utterly superfluous.

* * *

><p>Beritte's arms feel like they should have fallen off three years ago. She stops stirring meat and grain for a moment to give her exhausted limbs a bit of peace. <em>Not that it will help.<em> No one in the Calderon Valley had had peace for over six months now. She just stops herself from grimacing. The vord had been defeated; she could live long enough to get wrinkles now, and that would never do. She supposes they could still break the defenses at the wall and bring screaming, merciless death to everyone crouched behind it. Beritte can't find it in her to get very excited about that; months and months of constant anxiety had ground her fear down like seeds in mortar. "What do you think he's going to do for us?" she asks the kitchen at large.

"Who?" Old Bitte, improbably alive after all these years, asks. "Who would do for what? And keep moving, girl. We have refugees to feed."

_Always more flea-bitten refugees_. They sat, in thousands, outside her door, and somehow she had to help feed all those people. She takes the ladle back in hand and gives the thick porridge-cum-stew a desultory stir. "The First Lord, of course."

"Eh? Why would he do anything for us?"

Because Beritte would not be able to bear it, otherwise. "We knew him when he was a furyless—" She almost says _freak_ "—boy. We've stood in stalwart support of his uncle and of the realm. Surely he would find it in his heart to reward us."

"Treated him badly while he was here, too," Old Bitte says. "Called him all manner of names and bullied him pretty bad. I'd be surprised if he wanted anything to do with our folk."

Beritte puts her hands on her hips. "Well, no one knew he was Princeps Septimus' son."

"And had you _known_, you would have been kinder to him? Crows, child."

"That's not what I mean." There's enough decency in Beritte to know what the older woman means, and it shames her a little. Still, to be forced back to the steadholt when she had been building a life for herself as a Rivan shopgirl, to have everything snatched from her _right_ when everything was going so well—it is beyond bearing. Now she's stuck with possibly years and years of life and everything she had built before washed away. Crows take responsibly, and duty and honor and valor along with it.

"That's not his place," says Heddy from the oven. "If anyone were to give out prizes to people in the Calderon Valley, it should be Count Calderon or Lord Riva." She shakes her head. "And Riva's in no position to give anyone anything, and after this war, neither will be the count."

"Heard that from your husband, did you?" Beritte snaps.

Heddy doesn't react at all. "No. Frederick hasn't come back from the wall yet."

Some vile part of Beritte doesn't want him to come back. Let Heddy face it, then, the abandonment of a suitor! But perhaps that part is small, because shame washes over her. Beritte knows better than most the screaming, crying woman Heddy had become when she had been rescued from Aricholt. Knows how she had lost Frederick, good, clean, calm Frederick, to Heddy as inevitably as the seas grind rock to sand. "Surely he sent word to you."

"He has. They are only waiting out the attack. He'll be fine." There's a small quiver to her chin as she says it, and a hand goes to rest protectively on her swollen abdomen. "I've lost one husband to the Vord. I won't do it again."

"There now," Old Bitte says, "Heddy, you sit down before you faint. And you!" She rounds on Beritte. "I told you to keep stirring."

Beritte sighs, and does.


	16. Max and Dorotea (and an OC moppet)

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Dorotea, Max, and an OC moppet  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T because murder is referenced, and not very obliquley either.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> I thought Max and Dorotea should come to some sort of closure but then I realized that it wouldn't ever happen-she damaged him too badly and in ways that are too unforgivable for that to happen. _This_ particular fic is actually an outgrowth of a much longer fic that I'm probably not going to write (in which Dorotea is haunted by Max's mom who makes snarky comments, hovers in the background with a superior look on her face, and says, "How could this _possibly_ go wrong?" to all of Dorotea's plans.) I might write a small piece on Raucus' doomed romance, though. Eventually. After I finish giving Crassus a Happily Ever After and explore the development of germ theory in Alera. Like I said: eventually.

* * *

><p>One bright morning, a ghost walks into her room, easy as the breeze and just as jauntily. "Oh, hello," the little girl says. "I didn't know there was anyone here."<p>

"This is my work room," Dorotea says, keeping her voice soft. She studies the child. The girl is dark of hair and eyes, but her features belong to a face far too familiar for Dorotea's comfort: the pert nose, the stubbornly pointed chin, the long, winged bows, all replicated in loving detail from one generation to another. She knows what the child's name is, and to whom the child belongs. How could she not?

Dorotea had, after all, killed her grandmother.

_So you've finally come in the flesh, have you, Nephele?_

The girl perches on a stool without as much as a by-your-leave. _Of course. Why would Maximus teach his children manners? He probably encourages this sort of boorish behavior._

"Mama does this sometimes," she says, picking up sprig of mint. "She says it calms her nerves after Papa stomps all over them. He's always doing things like that. Mama says that he's her fourth child." She wrinkles her nose, props her chin on her palms, and, to Dorotea's dismay, settles in for a chat. "That's silly, don't you think? Because Papa is a _giant_." She throws her hands up in the air and leans back as though mere words could not contain Maximus' immensity. How well Dorotea knows _that_. "He's the best horse ever," the girl prattles on, "and I should know, everyone plays horse for me, though Papa says I mustn't ask Gradash because he is an Honored Guest, but I asked him anyway and he just growled at me and flicked his ears and said he was too old." She brings her hand up to her skull and wiggles her fingers in a move that in no way resembles anything Dorotea knows of Canim communicative gestures. "Derius says I'm just being silly, but he always says I'm being silly. _I_ think that he's the silliest of them all because he's got grey hair like an old man."

"Indeed," Dorotea says. "Does your…do your parents know you're here?" Crassus and Lord Antillus had never intimated it, of course, and Maximus had never said so _himself_, but his wife had made it painfully, baldly clear that Dorotea should keep her distance from their children. It is, all in all, an order Dorotea is only too happy to obey—she has no particular desire to see for herself Maximus flourish. She bears him no more ill will than necessary but it is the _principle_ of the thing.

"They're all busy. I'm supposed to play with Albus and Vereus and Macius but they're playing Vord and Knights and I'm supposed to be the Lady in Danger _again_." She scowls down at the assortment of herbs on the table. "It's so boring sitting in the corner just waiting for them. Playing with boys is no fun. I keep asking Mama and Papa to make another girl but then Papa says to ask Mama but Mama tells Papa to keep his mouth shut if he's capable of such a thing and Papa says she married him knowing that he couldn't and then she says that he was Cursor once upon a time so he should know how. Grown-ups are _weird_."

"We are a strange lot, I suppose." She casts a longing look at the door, wondering how to usher the child out. She toys briefly with the idea of leaving herself, but a rush of swift, hot pain puts an end to that—she could not leave the child here unsupervised; the girl could harm herself and Dorotea was bound to prevent that whenever she could.

_How ironic_. If not for the band about her neck, she would have been plotting this child's death, and that of her brothers' and _especially_ that of her father's.

The child babbles on, heedless of Dorotea's discomfort. How strange, that a small girl with a dead woman's face would come visit her in her small corner of the citadel, that she'd be inundated with a thousand mundane details of Maximus' household: Maximus and Veradis did not take visitors in the afternoons, and sometimes they locked the strangest of doors; Vereus and Macius liked riding but did not like taking her with them, the scoundrels; Uncle Tavi would carry her around for hours on his shoulders if she asked nicely; her cousins on Mama's side always told her to be more lady-like but Countess Masha was the best because she used bad words and told them to go to the, well, _you know_. How strange and how utterly predictable. Nephele had been haunting Dorotea's dreams for over twenty years; it had only been a matter of time before she invaded Dorotea's waking hours as well.

"Nephele," a tight voice says from the door.

The child's head snaps around, dark curls flying, and she hops off the stool. "Oh, hello, Papa. Are you done talking with Uncle Crassus and Grandpapa?"

Maximus reaches out a hand and pulls his daughter to his side, almost behind him. "Why did you go wandering so far? You gave me a fright." His eyes never leave Dorotea's, his face is a mask of impassivity, his hands steady. But she can feel it from him—a wave of sick, irrational fear. Not fear _of_ her, per se, but fear for what she would do to his daughter. And anger, so much anger. It slaps her like a cold, stinging wind.

Her voice trembles only a little. "Hello, Maximus."

Just like that, he smothers his emotions. "Stepmother."

The little girl—Nephele, because there weren't _enough_ of those running about her life—opens her eyes very wide. "Oh, she's—oh!" The child looks at Dorotea with new eyes, curious and not at all afraid. "She's the bad lady? She is Albus' grandmother?" She tugs at her father's hand, accusing, "She's not very scary."

Dorotea cannot keep a sad smile off her face. "Do you often tell your children that I am a bad lady?"

Max stares at her for a long moment, his eyes unreadable. Then he shakes his head, snorts, and then crosses the room to sit on the stool his daughter had recently occupied. He seats the child firmly on his lap, smoothing her unruly hair with distracted affection. "How are you, Stepmother?"

He hadn't asked for permission to sit, either. How typical. She smiles at him, and wonders belatedly if she should be afraid. "Alive, more or less."

"Pity," he says mildly.

"Are you here to change that?"

He smiles at her. No, that isn't a smile. It is a baring of teeth. "With my daughter looking on? Please, Stepmother. I save my most heinous acts of violence until _all_ my children are in attendance."

_How I ensured that Crassus was witness to your whippings, Maximus? It would not have done to leave your humiliation incomplete_. She touches her collar. The metal is incongruously warm against her fingertips; it ought, Dorotea thinks, to pulse red-hot with the malice of its craftings. "I suppose I deserve nothing less."

"There's a lot you deserve," Max says quietly. "A trial, imprisonment, and execution, for starters."

"That's unexpectedly generous of you. I thought you favored a more, ah, _abrupt_ brand of justice."

"I grew into a generous man, despite all of your, ah, _protestations_ otherwise." He bounces his daughter on his knee absentmindedly as he rummages through various pockets; then he pulls out an apple, shines it on his doublet, and presses it into his daughter's hands. "Besides, Crassus lost you once. I'm not putting him through that again."

His words drop into her heart like stones into a still pond. "Do you know," she says slowly, "you are not the first person to spare my life in order to spare my son pain?"

"Really?" He quirks an eyebrow at her. "Who told you that?"

"Your wife."

Now both his eyebrows shoot up. He asks again, "Really?" Then he grins down at his daughter. "Did you hear that, poppet?"

"What, that?" The girl's cheeks are round as a chipmunk's in summer, and juice drips down her chin.

Max makes no move to clean her. "That your mother threatened the bad lady for us."

"She's not so very bad," Nephele grants. "And not at all scary." Her little hands, sticky with juice, take hold of her father's cheeks and turn him to face her. "Are you sure you're not lying to me?"

Max kisses his daughter's nose. "She's been since rehabilitated. Behold, my little tyrant—she is no longer wont to crush us under her heel."

The child wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand and then licks her palm.

"Oh, for the love of—" Dorotea marches to the basin set on a low table, wets her handkerchief, and marches back to dab at the child's face. "You, Maximus, are the most hopeless specimen of humanity I have ever seen." She seizes hold of the girl's left hand and wipes away the sticky juices, then the right. "Just because you have the manners of a dyspeptic porcupine does not mean you teach your children to behave in the same manner." She trains a glare at the girl. "And _you_. You ought to know better. A lady asks before entering another's private domain. A lady asks before she sits down. And a lady does _not_ lick her fingers."

Thunderclouds gather in the girl's face and she jumps down from her father's lap. "I thought you were a friend. But you're worse," she says, in the ringing tones of a High Lady sentencing criminals to death and worse, "than _Aunt Eliana_. Fuss, fuss, fuss! I don't want to talk to you anymore." She spins about with great drama and, thus having made her spectacle, marches out the door.

Max watches the exchange with raised eyebrows. "Well, there you go," he says, "alienating the one member of my family who doesn't have a disgust of you."

"It's no loss to me," Dorotea says. "I've got no use for you lot."

"It's progress, at least," he concedes. "You didn't even try to kill her to do it." He stands up. "Don't try, by the way. I gather that Veradis has already been by, but I think it bears repeating." His eyes are very steady, very flat, and very calm. "What I said to you all those years ago is still true. If you touch me or mine, I will kill you. And Crassus' feelings, while they might disturb my sleep and my digestion, wouldn't stop me."

Dorotea takes in a deep breath. When he had almost reached the door, she asks, "Why did you stay to talk to me?"

He turns. A rueful smile quirks his mouth. "To stay away would have been cowardly."

And he had never been that—many things, but never that. "You're too much like your father that way," she says. And because there's very little point in being prideful now: "I always believed that to be a most singular point of unfairness, you know—that you bear Raucus' stamp on your countenance more clearly than Crassus ever will."

Max shrugs. "I always thought so, too, only I always thought it was a blasted nuisance."

"She looks like her, your daughter," Dorotea says. "Like Nephele—like her grandmother. Acts like her, too." Even after Dorotea had married Raucus, Nephele hadn't scurried off to a far-distant corner of the country like any low-born mistress ought to have done. Raucus hadn't wanted his misbegotten offspring so far away, of course, but Nephele could have brought him around, had she wanted to. She hadn't. Nephele had remained at Antillus with her bastard, and Dorotea had killed her—thrown her down a staircase, the very same staircase, in fact, across which, on one frigid morning, Nephele had met Dorotea's eyes and refused to look away. "Very much like her."

Max's face is blank. "If it's all the same to you," he says, his voice quiet, "I'd rather you didn't talk about her. Makes me angry, you see."

She ignores him. She neither wants nor needs his absolution, but he needs to know, or perhaps she needs him to know, that Dorotea hadn't always been a monster. "I could have overlooked her if you hadn't existed. I was prepared for your father's hatred. Furies knew I had quite a lot of it in me. But a threat to my son, the threat that she might bear him more children…" She shakes her head. "That I could not have borne."

Max stays very still. She can feel nothing from him. "It's far, far too late for this," he says finally. "Good-bye, stepmother." Then he strides out, his walk steady and confident, leaving her with only the echo of his boots on stone.


	17. Ceregus

**Title:** Venus Going Down, or Mars  
><strong>PairingsCharacters:** Ceregus and Tavi. Oblique mentions of Max and the Canim.  
><strong>Rating:<strong> K.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> How did one stay friends with Brencis despite everything? Ceregus always struck me as both singularly loyal and singularly petty.

* * *

><p>For all that he'd lived through the Vord War with his wits (and his jaw) intact, Rivus Ceregus is not prepared for the sight of Gaius Octavian.<p>

He remembers as well as anyone their days the Academy. Ceregus himself had never participated in Brencis' persecution, of course; the boy had been, however nominally, however insignificantly, a hero from the valley of Riva. Perhaps it had been for that reason that he'd felt private thrills whenever Brencis had taken it upon himself to punish the disgusting little upstart freak—for daring to be better than he ought to be, for daring to try to claim a place among his betters, for daring to be more than the bootlicking trash he was.

There are echoes of Tavi Patronus Gaius in Gaius Octavian, but the boy is gone. In his place walks a tall man in battered armor, a sweeping scarlet cape, and a _gladius_hanging from his hip. That on its own is hardly impressive—Ceregus has seen many, many such men.

It is, instead, the flickering light of intelligence in his eyes. It is the hard cast to his mouth. It is his walk, swift and clipped and confident. It is his companions—that fool Antillar, yes, but also the enormous, brutish Canim who stride beside him like they have every right to be there. It is the stories: he is said to have escaped from Vord-devoured Canea, sailed his ships across bloody _land_, and killed the queen with one stroke. The aura of authority and power covers him like a cloak.

Ceregus does not know how he caught the man's eye. Perhaps it was his shamefully gaping mouth. Gaius Octavian stops and regards him levelly, and Ceregus notes distantly that the man is slightly taller than him now. Somehow, he forces his mouth into a servile sneer. "Come home at last, your highness?"

Gaius Octavian looks at him steadily. Then he smiles. "It's good to see you too, Ceregus."

"Tavi," Antillar growls.

"I know, Max," Octavian murmurs. He turns back to Ceregus and nods. "I'm pleasantly surprised. We encountered Renzo a while back, collared. I'm glad to see you survived your association with Brencis intact." He nods again, and already his attention, the full force of his personality, has been drawn elsewhere. "Warmaster."

The great wolfish beast rumbles.

His group sweeps down the hall, leaving Ceregus discarded in the eddies of his own follies.


End file.
